


we live. we lose. we love (red velvet).

by bloodscrolls



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Compliant, Cross-Posted on AFF, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 21:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodscrolls/pseuds/bloodscrolls
Summary: originally posted on AFF but re-posted some of my favourite works here after creating an account for a fic fest. just playing around the site tbh.so here you go, some short works on life, loss and love revolving around wendy & seulgi/wendy & irene.





	1. Courage (Wenrene)

on good days, joohyun rests snugly on seungwan's chest, her heart fluttering in sync with hers. they fall asleep to the gleam of the moonlight stroking their marble floor and wake up to the radiant rays of the sun, all within a single heartbeat, seungwan's arms around joohyun's, her breath tickling the strands of hair lying on the bareness of the latter's neck.

on bad days, joohyun lies on her empty lonely bed in daegu, stares listlessly at the barrenness of her ceiling, yet wonders with trepidation if love is just love — that there wasn't any paradigm for love, no matter how much society seemed to enforce it. true, the world was beginning to open up to alternative forms of love, yet she was still entrapped in a traditional and patriarchal korea where two women wouldn't want to be caught dead embracing and lip-locking in public.

(why should they be considered an 'alternative' form of relationship, she wondered, when they could very much offer the same kind of warmth. but she knew she would never come to understand the rigid idiosyncrasies the world possessed and imposed onto unique individuals, unique individuals like her who found out to her horror that she wouldn't be fitting in to the mould society gifted her on the day she met son seungwan)

in the smallness of her room she feels suffocated by these traditional ideologies, she envisions her entrapment within the traditional architecture of her house, the conventional mindsets of her parents and her lack of courage to run away with her knight (why did the female equivalent — dame, sound so overtly effeminate, almost undermining the prowess and adequacy of a woman in combat?) she feels her knees go weak, her hands shake in nervousness, her lips tight-lipped with a wonderful relationship that could not be exhibited for the simple reason seungwan was a girl. her body, though, is equally raging with frustration because the passion and love burning within her wants her to fight for the single most significant thing that has made her life more meaningful, and yet she, like a sail out in the open sea during a storm, can only pray she doesn't sink from the pressures of the world.

in the safety of seungwan's room, however, their hands are interlaced underneath the blanket, their legs curled around one another's, breathing into each other's lips and all we can see is a single entity of them. love has the power of bringing people together, putting them together like two adjacent puzzle pieces, and despite their flaws and differences, they always fit perfectly.

love is love. joohyun likes to believe that her past relationships are only a stepping stone to a kind of love she once thought was unreachable, but one that would inadvertently fill her up with all things beautiful and worthwhile. she just never knew it would come in the form of a guitar-playing, overtly expressive, amiable and romantic fun-sized girl.

she always thought her past heartbreaks would culminate in an exultant, triumphant celebration where she stood on her toes to press her lips against a handsome boy, his muscular arms surrounding her small physique, providing safety. she always thought she would be swung up easily in a bridal style as she slept over at his place, feeling his ripped frame, taking in his strong cologne. oh, the kind of protection such a boy would offer.

but her previous relationships were all boys and the only protection they offered was how their break up protected her from seeking another boy like them; that when her tears fell, a blatant warning was how maybe, just maybe (definitely) boys weren't the only ones offering protection.

son seungwan was vastly different from what joohyun imagined her knight in shining armour to be. dressed in a red checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a tight pair of shorts, joohyun catches her practising her guitar in a secluded corner of the school during break and wanders over, wonders if all guitar strumming sounds like love, or if it was just seungwan's.

everything about seungwan is love, she comes to realize. and that is when she starts to realize the fallibility of the world's principles. love does not have to be discovered in the eyes of the opposite gender, she comes to realize — love is not the fanciful ideas the media portray — the lame flowers and chocolates and grand expensive expressions of love. she comes to realize, love is the burnt cookies seungwan bakes but forgets while kissing her good morning, love is a nervous seungwan singing a love song for her and messing up the strumming (but perfectly picking the strings on joohyun's heart), love is a shy but brave seungwan against the expectations of the world on her shoulders, telling joohyun she loves her.

and maybe this is when joohyun lies on her bed in daegu, lies restless at 2.21am in the morning and realizes how much seungwan has given her, is willing to give her, is willing to give up for her and wonders how much of a coward she has been, receding into the shell of her daegu home and feeling overwhelmed by the weight of the world, only forgetting that the antidote to all of this was seungwan's love.

maybe this will be hard, joohyun thinks, envisioning the road in future laden with condemning critical condescending stares and rejection and alienation and and and — she sighs, feels herself sink into her empty bed but her mind suddenly flashes back to seungwan again and sees her hands clenched tightly with hers and seungwan's slender arms wrapping around her offering her the warmest warmth and maybe two people are enough to battle the world.

maybe two girls are enough to lift the weight of the world off their shoulders.

so she feels herself grow strong in the knees, her heart surging with a newfound courage.

maybe this time she will love without fear.


	2. Memorabilia (Wenrene)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (i have a blue box too, don't we all?)

sometimes the itch in her fingers makes her rummage through her room and the mess becomes worse. what used to be a disorganized stack of notes lies sprawled on her table, what used to be drawers of chucked-away momentos lies open for her to see in all its fullness, what used to be boxes of birthday cards and postcards from friends spills and lays bare. in all this mess she wonders what she is really looking for.

because no matter, her eyes dart to the same blue box and her eyes caresses the same glittery edges that peel and fade with every year that passes. she wonders why she still makes a mess of her whole desk when her hands naturally reach for the box tucked at what she deems the unreachable corner of her room, like the far end of the universe that people forget exists but is still there, always there. she wonders why she doesn't throw the box away.

she peels the lid off carefully, but pieces of glitter still fall off and stick on her fingers (they will be hard to rub off, but they will be rubbed off one day, anyway, she thinks, she hopes). the box feels more and more fragile, the material getting flimsy by the year. if she tells herself not to touch it, the box collects dust and is eroded by it. if she tells herself to take it out, the box is triggered by the sudden movement and suddenly realizes how heavy it is to carry the things that are inside it, when it lays unsteadily in her skinny arms. it feels almost uncertain it can bear the weight of these memories and like joohyun's heart wonders when it can let all these go.

sometimes joohyun thinks it must be a little (just a little) masochistic of her, to cough through these dusty momentos (half of her was sure she did not want to remember any of this but the other nostalgic sentimental half always wins), to leaf through letters and letters of faded ink that conveyed an eternal affection for bae joohyun, the occasional "can't wait to get married and buy a house with you"s, the frequent "you make me so happy, do you know that?"s and the perpetual inevitable "i love you"s and to think, well, fuck you, son seungwan, she wonders. where's eternity now?

but she continues to re-explore (how many times does she want to hear her heart break again?) the box anyway, takes out these little trinkets that were a proof of seungwan's (once) love for her — a watch with a cracked screen because in their early days of love joohyun has clumsy hands and lets loose the watch gifted by seungwan, watching it crash to the ground before apologizing profusely but seungwan says it's ok, there's always another time. there's also a stack of movie ticket stubs that has lost its lustre, joohyun can't make out the movie titles and dates of screening anymore and she tries to remember the one movie where seungwan secretly shyly reaches for joohyun's sweaty palm because she's so so so nervous on their first date, but she can't. there are a few polaroids of them and joohyun remembers how she tells seungwan "it lasts, like us" and fucking wishes that these photos would fade away then and there. and then there's that thumbdrive of seungwan's recording of all of joohyun's favourite songs and songs on their consummation night (what the fuck was seungwan even thinking back then) and she wants to burn it but the thumbdrive is plastic and she doesn't want to pollute and kill the world with seungwan's affections, the way the latter did to her.

so the masochistic part of her plugs it into her laptop and she puts on her earpiece and listens to the silence... and then a soft plucking comes on and seungwan's melodic voice is filling her ears and tears are on the verge of falling and joohyun knows she has fallen again. she sees herself in the days of her past, how she fell, how she's still falling and wonders when she'll stop.

"it's okay not to be okay  
sometimes it's hard to follow your heart

tears don't mean you're losing  
everybody's bruising  
just be true to who you are"

joohyun thinks of all that seungwan has just sung, sees seungwan in her perfection and goodness, sees seungwan filling the void in her life and knows that while it's okay to not be okay, while she should be true to who she is, joohyun lives the prophecy seungwan sings but wonders how true she can be to herself when she had allowed seungwan to enter her life and re-define her. love remoulds us, she thinks, so how can we ever feel as true to ourselves as before, but only as true as our most recent loss?

she's sobbing hard now and rips out the thumbdrive in a fit of rage. she doesn't know if it was the empty promises, the ignorance that nothing could last between people like them, or simply ill-luck that leaves her in this rut. all she knows is she should have tried to stop time when she could (was that why she dropped her watch?) or reverse to that time she met seungwan and clenched her heart tight, told her heart to refrain from beating too fast for someone else, because that meant letting another entity (who was capable of leaving no doubt) be the reason joohyun breathes.

so she stares at the opened box, all these momentos laid bare, piercing into joohyun's soul, tearing her apart again and again. sometimes she doesn't know why she lets herself be torn apart. she wonders if humans have a perverse inclination to experience or re-live pain because it takes them out of their numbness and reminds them they are alive. sometimes she wonders if that's the reason in her re-opening of the box, or is it just her deluding herself that opening the box meant maybe seungwan didn't really leave at all, that she still lives in joohyun's mind (is that enough, though).

sometimes she doesn't know whether she should hate seungwan, because she loves her and remembers all these beautiful horrid things.

but she also remembers how all these things she remembers are what she should have forgotten by now.


	3. Enough (Wenrene)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irene wonders when and why it had started to all go wrong

maybe it's when she sits down in the hustle and bustle of the city and turns her head around, stares hard at the unceasing motion that she realizes how hard she has to work to earn the attention and appreciation from the world. nobody waits for you to catch up.

she watches her hands go clammy, her toes are suffocating in those court shoes and they want to breathe so badly, but are trapped within because 'formal wear', they said. and she feels the blouse and blazer collude to entrap her, the difficulty she remembers having to put them on every single morning, to button up to her neck and try not to exhale too heavily for fear of ripping it (she has more inclination to breathe in though, because she feels the oxygen doesn't reach her brain fast enough in her attire. it's not so easy, she comes to realize.) joohyun wonders when she'll finally be able breathe, too.

rejected proposals, deadlines brought forward and unending meetings and she never feels she's up to it. for every step she climbs in attempting to fulfill her duties to the best of her abilities, she watches her expectations skip three steps higher. she wonders when she'll ever meet them.

and the world doesn't stop to tell her she's incapable there and then. because the world is despicable and ruthless, wants to watch people rise and fall and try so hard to rise but may never rise to that level again. who can, joohyun thinks, who can keep wanting to rise, when the stairs of expectations behave like escalators at full speed, and you keep falling, scraping your knees. who can keep rising to meet the expectations when you're all bruised and broken, and these expectations never stop mounting.

it's a vivid reminder, when she retreats to her home late at night, shrugs off the attire that suffocates her. she thinks, maybe she can breathe now. but she inevitably glances around, her eyes dart to the polaroids shaped in a heart glued to a board and to the bathroom where excuses were made to allow for a shower together, and finally to the bed where she remembers coldness wasn't always the only thing that accompanied her at night. thinking, thinking, thinking, she thinks she still catches wisps of her favourite perfume floating in the stagnant air of her home at this moment. she sighs, because a reminiscent her thinks back to times when she wasn't always alone.

\---

"we have a bunch of polaroids, what should we do with it?"  
"hmm let's paste it up on a board. it'll always remind you of us and of me," seungwan smirks (and joohyun wonders if she still remembers, because joohyun has never forgotten)

\---

"what the hell are spraying your perfume around my home for?!" joohyun is chasing after her. she is skipping around, randomly spraying her marc jacobs daisy perfume. what the hell, it's stupid, and a waste of expensive perfume.  
"your home smells so stale i think it needs some life maybe it'll grow daisies after this" and joohyun continues chasing, the perfume does remind her of seungwan, but it reminds her more how she prefers to smell it on seungwan herself.

\---

she slips off her clothes, steps into the shower and starts humming. an arm pulls her from behind, and hums the harmony to whatever she's humming.  
a pause, "what are you doing?"  
"saving water" and sungwan pulls her even closer with both her arms. she smiles, continues singing.  
love like this, by kodaline.  
"a love like this won't last forever / i know that a love like this won't last forever / but i, i don't really mind, i don't really mind at all"  
(and she thinks now, well, she minds, she really minds)

\---

you see, that's the problem with memories, because by remembering the good times. you also remember the bad times, which is now. and she wonders if there is anything she could have done to salvage the relationship.

and maybe it is then, when she relishes (regrets?) the vastness of her bed, her arm draped over her eyes that she realizes how the world makes a continuous joke of her. because it is when she allows someone to fix her that she gives that same person the power to break her, toss her back to the emptiness of her sheets at night, and leaves joohyun wondering in what ways was she ever not enough.

her mind is vicious, doesn't let her eyelids peel open and instead throws her back to when she catches seungwan on the streets, hands clasped with another. her side profile reveals her giggling to whatever the other taller girl is saying, and she sees seungwan's hand tighten a little more over the other's. foolish, foolish little joohyun trails them from a distance, hears her heart break but continues walking, imagining herself stepping over these shards of her heart, shattering them further.

she sees them stop at an alley, and she tries to be less conspicuous, peeking her head over once in awhile and catches them embracing and before they can proceed further she backs away. she doesn't know how it is possible but she hears her heart keep breaking breaking breaking and she can't cry and it's the worst thing because without crying there is no purging and she feels so so so entrapped with nowhere to escape; to release all these brokenness.

the world doesn't want any of it stained on its streets, anyway.

she flings her arm away, lets the night light in her room blind her vision so she forces open her eyes to stop hurting herself with those horrid memories. she looks around and remembers herself trying to cook ramen (she admits she's not good but seungwan's hungry) and ends up undercooking them, watches seungwan swallow hardly the rubber taste of undercooked noodles. she remembers wanting to help seungwan as the latter mops the floor but all she does is fall and delays seungwan because now seungwan has to rub her bruises. joohyun remembers always trying, never succeeding (who defined success anyway and why did she have to adhere to that definition?)

she stares hard at the board of polaroids on her wall. one of the polaroids tilts a little to the side, the heart is a funny shape now. she stares harder. perhaps the adhesive on the polaroid has faded and she sees it dismantle from the board and fall with a light thud to the floor. she stares again at the heart, incomplete now.

sometimes she wonders when she'll ever be enough.


	4. Confession (Wenrene)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungwan struggles to reconcile her faith with feelings for Joohyun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm actually a christian, so pls dont bash me for slamming this religion. i just wanted to deal with this issue i feel this religion kind of evades and i have inkling that there are quite a number of people out there who are very confused with how they feel about this. either way, i believe it is never wrong to be in love and i really hope they find some sort of closure for themselves one day. and that the community will not condemn them nor alienate them for the things these people have no power over (we don't choose the kind of people we want to love). thanks for reading this guys you are awesome <3

she rubs her feet on the carpet of the entrance, enters into the sacred silence of the compound. she turns to dip her fingers into the font of holy water, makes the sign of the cross and walks down the aisle, genuflects and kneels to pray. she hears the soft humming of the choir in the background, practising hymns before the start of mass and she can't concentrate, the humming mixing with the words in her head. she fails to tell god what she wishes to tell him.

she goes through the motion, stands from her seat and watches the priest enter and start the celebration of mass. she sits, stands, kneels as required, responses accordingly and eats the eucharistic host as she does weekly. she doesn't realize it, or maybe she does, but her mind is in a deep haze, she watches everything pass by her, in slow motion but never really processing it. she sees all in greyscale but nothing is ever fully comprehended whenever she steps in here.

they tell her it is divine grace. that his power is always incomprehensible. 

but she wonders how the laws she learnt in church are so fixed and ordered, so deemed comprehensible and anything that lies outside these boundaries are incomprehensible and unforgivable. she learns them, she comprehends them, is taught not to break them or be condemned.

seungwan wonders who decides what is comprehensible or not, forgivable or not, if god isn't really ever here on earth. (they tell her that it is faith that pulls them through, but she knows faith isn't what tells them to decide for themselves what is wrong or not)

\---

on weekdays she is miles away from the blindingly pure white compound and she lies in bed, small and cramped, feels a small but firm back against her chest. her eyes trail downwards as the wind whistles lowly through the small gap of her window, reflections of headlights outside oscillate around her room dimly and she makes out the silhouette of the small frame in front of her, curved into a tiny ball, fitting against the curve seungwan has created so the other can comfortably rest against her as she drifts into peaceful slumber.

she thinks she can let her lids fall slowly and let her breaths turn steady as her body recuperates as the night sky blankets them. but she only can shut her lids tight and pray "god please forgive me", because she turns joohyun over gently and plants a chaste kiss on her lips. she traces lightly with the back of her fingers joohyun's defined cheekbones down to her jawline, the sides of her neck, her collarbones. joohyun is tickled, her smile graces her lips as her eyes slowly fit open, tilts her head up to kiss seungwan. deeper, deeper, deeper. joohyun's power over her is incomprehensible, too, she realizes, and feels herself lose strength in her limbs as joohyun deftly takes her shirt off and slides her boy shorts down. in a swift motion joohyun flips her over and caresses her over and over again. she feels joohyun snuggle into the edge of her neck and whisper into her ears,

"i love you, wan-ah'.

she wakes up and finds herself in an intertwining of limbs, the smell of heat and sleep surrounding her, her arm lazily over the waist of joohyun but feels the tight grip of joohyun's hand on her arm. she nestles herself into joohyun's hair, still smelling like the strawberry shampoo she showered with the night before. she envisions joohyun and her a complete mess on their bed now, but the mess is complete, like a tangled knot –  in all its disarray it is still an unbroken and whole line. the rays of the sun radiates softly, welcomes them into the morning filled with new beginnings and opportunities for seungwan to make new memories with joohyun.

in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for a new day, joohyun and seungwan go about a supposedly mundane routine. seungwan makes breakfast and joohyun makes the bed, they both stand in front of the mirror and brush their teeth, throw silly looks with their mouths full of colgate foam then sprinkle a little water at each other. seungwan could be wrong, but she thinks joohyun's sprinkle of water on her feels holier.

they sit across each other at the dining table, eat their usual toast and scrambled eggs, with piping hot coffee that seungwan knows joohyun loves with a cube of sugar and a quarter of the cup filled with carnation milk. any less than that and she knows joohyun will enter the boisterious life outside their home with a frown. so she tries everyday to be good enough for joohyun, and she starts by perfecting her cup of coffee.

\---

the church believes we are never perfect, we are always tainted by original sin and so we should continuously turn to god with repentence for reconciliation. she waits outside, twiddles her fingers in extreme anxiety (they will tell her it is guilt) and tries to reflect accordingly. the examination of conscience asks if she's engaged in any 'unnatural acts of sexual pleasure' and she tries hard to not deem what she has with joohyun as that (they whisper in her ears, it is, it is). she imagines joohyun in her head, telling seungwan how much she loves her, how much seungwan makes her happy and smiles in all her glee as they embrace and seungwan knows she hasn't felt any happier. but years and years of being indoctrinated with these values cannot eradicate the growing guilt that festers in her heart like a disease. it doesn't always feel this way, not when she's underneath the sheets being completed by joohyun, but she cannot escape it the minute she enters this place and she really wishes she could know what is really right (she has come to learn no one can ever be truly right, and that shakes her quite a bit). she steps into the confessional box, makes the sign of the cross and tells the priest to bless her for her sins.

she thinks of the love between god and her, love between joohyun and her and while god's love is all encompassing and omnipresent and powerful in all its godly spiritual ways, love is love and she is not undermining god in any way, but joohyun has never made her feel any less complete than any man to a woman (or woman to a man, for feminists out there). so she wonders why whoever came up with the current law dictated as such. she kneels in heavy sorrow, doesn't understand, is unable to understand why she still has to obey whoever interpreted god's word in this way. love manifests in different ways but there is no right or wrong love, she thinks, and yet still feels the crushing weight of the church's word (not god's, because she believes deep down god is always always always accepting and forgiving, despite circumstances) upon her.

"i'm sorry, father, for being in love with a girl."

people usually leave the confessional box with a light heart, for they have received the healing grace of god because they have given in to the word of the church and asked for forgiveness what the latter deemed as wrong. sengwan steps out of the church, stares numbly at her surroundings and feels her heart grow heavier. she thinks she will never ever reconcile her dilemma, because she feels her heart tugging strongly back to apartment where her other half is residing in. she trudges back, slowly but surely.

she wonders if there is really anything to be sorry for.


	5. Language (Wenrene)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Korean Joohyun makes friend with new Canadian trainee Son Seungwan

joohyun remembers the time they first met, two years ago: tongue tied, not because she was in love (she didn't know that would be part of the reason, too), but because she knew this girl hailed from canada, played four instruments and was a pretty darn good singer. placed on a pedestal, joohyun wondered then if they could ever be friends.

"hi, my name is seungwan, i'm 18 years old this year," the entire sentence enters joohyun's mind like an incoherent ramble. she starts by picking out words she understands "hi", right, "my name", right, "18???"... she begins reciting the numbers in english in her head... "18", right. and maybe she took a little too long, so seungwan switches to imperfect korean and introduces herself, albeit nervously and in a stuttering state. language was perhaps the biggest barrier for them.

she knows she should mingle more with the canadian, try to pick some english so that they can converse more and be the friends they should be since they're going to debut as a girl group anyway. it is selfish if seungwan is the only one trying to pick up korean all the time to assimilate herself. as if getting the hang of korean culture isn't enough, she has to understand the syntax and grammar and lexicon of the language as well. joohyun tries to empathize, but everytime she hears herself speak a few words of english, she groans in disgust and tells herself maybe it is better to shut up. her friendship with seungwan progresses very slowly, but definitely.

sometimes seungwan watches her from afar, sees her trying, and appreciates the effort. it isn't necessary, she thinks, so she walks over wraps her arm around joohyun, whispers "thank you for trying" and leaves joohyun with furrowed eyebrows and a hardworking brain processing, although with much arduousness, the mere four words.

\---

seungwan knows the korean culture is a funny one, even more so the kpop culture. fans seem to adore her and joohyun being together and yet she knows clearly at the back of her head that it shouldn't ever materialize into reality. yet when a clingy joohyun wraps her arm around seungwan's own arm, slides her fingers down and laces between the gaps of seungwan's fingers, she turns her head to see how close joohyun is, can almost smell her shampoo (true, they all use the same one, but seungwan thinks love segregates and makes all experiences unique, even scent), she knows this isn't just the mere feeling derived from fan service. there's a growing urge within her that she cannot put a finger to, her stomach lurches forward so hard she feels herself want to crash on top of joohyun and make her feel incredible things, because if joohyun feels incredible, then she feels incredible, too. she wants so badly to hide behind the flashes of camera, screaming fans, to retreat into their dilapidated dorm, onto the bed where joohyun lays. in the quiet of the night she stills feels intensely the inexplicable urge inside her, her heart racing in her ears, but she knows she is safe.

ever since joohyun answered in an interview she wanted to room with seungwan, playful frivolous seulgi and sooyoung conspire and throw seungwan out of her bedroom, and she finds herself in joohyun's room with two single beds pushed together. seungwan thinks that they do not talk much, but she still feels close to joohyun and she smiles because words aren't everything. maybe, definitely, joohyun feels the same way, because when she answered "seungwan" in the interview, it was only after she recalled the times seungwan woke up earlier than all of them to prepare breakfast, or when she did the chores, fixed the lights, tucked them into bed and joohyun especially, always enquiring if the leader was alright and coping well, that joohyun realized love cannot be expressed by words alone.

this feeling intensifies, when joohyun shivers in cold nights, and seungwan swiftly rolls over to her side and wraps her own blanket over joohyun and holds her close. joohyun remembers always sighing, feeling warmth emitting from her back. she knows she is safe from the harsh wintry weather that plagues korea. she too knows, in the dark of the night, seungwan cannot see her blush and she is safe.

\---

the sky is crusted with thick heavy clouds and the wind howls, swinging doors back and forth, shaking the hinges of windows. temperature has dipped and the winter chill sets in, as usual, as always. seungwan walks around, closes their door shut for good, locks the windows to prevent further slamming. she slides into the bed and lays close to joohyun.

it's their free day tomorrow but they have retired to bed early, out of sheer fatigue. yet joohyun and seungwan lay restless in bed, stare limply at the ceiling with paint chipped off, feel their beds creak if they move too much. the silence is deafening, but it beats hearing the winds howl and feeling its harsh cold bite thereafter. seungwan laces her hands with joohyun's and realizes it is still cold, despite being in the room for half an hour already.

"you're still cold"

"yeah"

seungwan wraps her other hand over joohyun's, and rubs the hand between hers feverishly.

"it's ok, you don't have to."

"i want to"

seungwan asserts in english, ending the conversation. joohyun in fatigue and incomplete grasp of the english language, struggles to understand and formulate a relevant response, so she turns to seungwan and watches her. seungwan smiles, throws an arm over joohyun's waist and pulls her near. joohyun looks deep into seungwan's eyes, stares into an unending dark brown that holds the words she hasn't learnt in korean to say, and joohyun wonders what she did right to earn someone this precious. she wants to thank seungwan for always being there, wants to craft a 10 000 word essay to express her love for seungwan in poetic and lyrical ways but seungwan doesn't understand korean poetry and joohyun doesn't know the techniques to write one in english.

she tries, in the simplest way, and hopes it is enough for seungwan.

she pulls their interlocked hands up to the air, uses her free hand to trace over the bare skin of seungwan's forearm. she slowly spells "i love you" on her arm, and ends with a full stop. because her love for seungwan is simply that, no conditions or need for explanations, in its simple and unadulterated form.

seungwan pouts and then the words on her arm visualizes coherently in her head; she breaks into a grin and turns their interlocked arms over so joohyun's arm faces her, she replies "i love you too", but in korean this time.

the gleam of the moon seeps into their room and accentuates the features of joohyun's face, seungwan sees a tinge of red slowly daub her cheeks and a shy closed-mouth smile form on her lips. they both inch a little closer, closer now, and their lips meet in a chaste kiss.

words aren't everything, because in the months and years they have come and showered affection upon each other in various ways, in the times they have come and lain in bed together; in the times where they have held each other close in silence, they have come to realize their language barrier is surmountable.

afterall, love is a verb.


End file.
